Archive for November, 2009

Race and white dominance in American anthropology

Sunday, November 22nd, 2009

In demographic terms, anthropology in the United States continues to be dominated by white Americans. Consider this graph of the racial distribution of anthropology doctorates over the last twelve years (incidentally, the NSF had no data for 1999, so there should really be a gap year inserted here, but I trust you can all manage [...]

Four theses on university presidents’ speech

Wednesday, November 11th, 2009

Recently I got an interesting email from my university’s communications department with a link to a speech recently given by the university’s current president, Robert Zimmer. They said they had appreciated my prior comments on academic freedom and were curious to hear my comments on this speech.
Never having been asked to comment on anything on [...]

Nietzsche’s Niche: Kirp on the University of Chicago

Thursday, November 5th, 2009

I was just reading Christopher Newfield’s interesting 2003 book review on university-industry relations when I noticed that he mentioned a chapter by Kirp on the University of Chicago. The following rather florid (occasionally insulting) prose is interesting — at least to me — because it proceeds from remarking that the university is a bastion of [...]